‘Your mother actually designed the garden,’ he shared with me once. ‘I wouldn’t have known where to begin.’
‘It’s very pretty.’
‘That tree was planted too close to the boundary,’ he said, gesturing to the guava. ‘When the roots continue to grow, it’ll start causing cracks in the wall.’
‘But it’s fine for now, isn’t it?’
‘It’s fine for now.’
Dad often came down here in the mornings to drink his espresso, as he’d done today. We’d just arrived from my house and been greeted by Maria with his coffee.
‘What’s that on your arm … and your legs?’ Dad asked when we sat down. I was still sporting a cluster of bruises and grazes across my shins and a large blue-green welt on my bicep from the avocado-tree fall last Friday. The deepest gash on my leg – caused by a small branch that jutted out of the trunk and scraped my skin off on the way down – had started to scab over. With everything that had happened since then, I had completely forgotten they were there.
‘From the farm, last weekend. I was trying to grab some avos from the tree, but I lost my balance.’
‘Surely your grandpa had a hook he could’ve used instead of sending you up there?’
I shrugged in reply.
Dad swirled his espresso before downing the remnants. ‘They can’t have been doing that well on the farm anyway,’ he said abruptly. ‘I mean, they weren’t exactly rolling in it. Could be a good thing, coming into the city, doing some decent work. A blessing in disguise.’
I started to fiddle with a loose thread that kept unravelling as I pulled it from the hem of my dress.
‘Zim’s falling way behind with tobacco anyway, isn’t it? Getting beaten by China.’
Dad engaged in this sort of conversation often. He would ask questions out loud seemingly directed to me, but would end up answering them himself.
‘The Chinese are big smokers too. There’s a real market over there. They’ve got something like two hundred cigarette factories.’
As usual, I found myself repeating ‘Oh really?’ as I nodded along, not possessing any knowledge that I could use to contribute to the discussion. But this was enough to keep Dad talking, and he seemed happy for the chance to share his own expertise with me. What I really wanted to ask was where my birthday present was, the one I’d circled with blue biro; the one that wasn’t a Super Scooter, but a gift he promised to get me nonetheless.
Freeing my hands from the loose thread that had been distracting me, I plucked a low-hanging nectarine from the tree next to me and, in one motion, bit into it.
‘We’re just about to go out for your birthday lunch, why are you eating?’ Dad asked.
I shrugged again. I hadn’t made a conscious decision to eat; I had simply noticed the ripeness of the fruit around me and a moment later felt the juices dribbling down my chin.
‘Just be careful, Hannah. You may be young now and can burn off all your food like that,’ he said with a click of his fingers. ‘But one day it’s going to catch up to you. You have to think about what you put in your mouth.’
This wasn’t the first time Dad had said something about my eating habits to me. It certainly wouldn’t be the last. Grandpa was always impressed with the way I could pack away just as much food as any of the men; he affectionately called me a real tomboy, a true bush-girl, summoning me to his side whenever there were leftovers for us to share. Dad, however, was not impressed with my capacity to hoover up any and all food in sight. He was not charmed by the fact that I had sophisticated tastebuds and asked for garlic and chilli when I went to St Elmo’s; in fact, he was patently disgusted by the amount I could eat. I knew that when we went out for lunch later, he would do as he always did, and order on my behalf; usually the same meal that he was getting himself, minus the Campari on ice.
I decided I would change out of the outfit I had arrived in with the unravelling hem and wear to lunch the dress Dad bought me last Christmas. It was a soft pastel pink, with embroidered blue flowers dotted along the petticoat, puff sleeves and a white trim. Mum was vocal about her dislike of this garment.
‘It’s so … stuffy,’ Mum would say. The dresses Mum purchased for me were more funky, in her words; colourful animal prints, bold sunflowers, mismatched zigzags. But Dad had bought me this dress and it was the only piece of clothing he had ever given me so I was determined to wear it whenever I felt like it.
Before we left, Dad took some birthday pictures of me in the driveway. I figured he was happy that I had chosen to wear the dress he’d bought me and thought I looked nice in it.
‘Poor thing. You’re like a patchy ragdoll,’ Dad said, as he tucked the camera back into its pouch.
We went to Victoria 22, which was Dad’s favourite place to eat, and one of the many former-houses-turned-restaurants that were prolific in Harare. We took our seats at a table outside, with a view of the pool and the garden, the white tablecloth cascading to just above our feet. Not long after he’d sat down, Dad was standing again, waving hello to some people in the distance. I stood too, because I knew that’s what you did when you were greeting someone. A woman came walking towards us, her thin, tanned legs poking out of a turquoise sundress. Trailing behind was a young girl – maybe five or six years old. Dad introduced us, and I smiled and said, ‘How do you do?’ (as I’d been taught to do) and shook the woman’s ring-laden hand.
I expected them to say a quick ‘hi’ then ‘bye’ and find their own table, but to my surprise Dad pulled out the seat opposite me and the woman sat down, her child taking the seat to my left.
I’d been under the false impression that it was going to be just Dad and me attending my ‘birthday lunch’. I racked my brains trying to recall if he’d mentioned the additional guests, but I was positive he had not.
The woman – Chrissie – apologised for looking like ‘such a mess’, citing a recent power cut as the reason her hair was still damp and curly.
‘It’s such a lovely sunny day though. Hopefully it will dry soon.’ She smiled with all her teeth as she threw her head back, the dark, wet ringlets falling just below her collarbones.
As I expected, Dad ordered for me but stopped short of doing the same for the woman, instead choosing to strongly recommend the hake and new potato salad.
Once we had finished eating – and listening to Chrissie discuss her jewellery-making business – Dad suggested the young girl and I find a spot to play on the grass. I met his eyes and tried to convey my annoyance, but he shifted his gaze towards the girl.
‘Elise, your mum tells me you like mermaids? Hannah also likes mermaids.’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘Those magic books you like, don’t they have mermaids?’ Before I was able to reply he said to Chrissie, ‘Hannah’s an only child. She’s very mature, very smart, because she’s always been around adults. But I think it’s nice that she gets to spend some time with children her own age, since she doesn’t have a brother or sister at home to play with.’
I wanted to dispute the notion that the girl who’d needed an extra cushion placed on her chair to reach the table, and whose mother had cut up her chicken for her, was someone my age, but I knew there was no point.
‘Have you seen The Little Mermaid?’ I asked Elise, as I walked with her to a shady section of the garden. ‘Do you like Ariel?’
‘Uh-huh, she’s my favourite princess.’
The girl was sweet, and I felt bad for resenting having to spend time with her. It wasn’t her I resented: it was Dad. We spoke about Disney princesses and which ones were our favourites. She told me that I looked like a princess myself, maybe Cinderella, or Princess Aurora because my dress was pink, and I beamed, liking her more and more.
Elise talked about her two older brothers, and how they ‘sucked’ because they never included her in any of their games and chose to spend their time at her da
d’s house. And so we played together, dipping our feet into the pool, pretending we were mermaid princesses. I shared with her a trick Diana and I had invented to get away with using swear words – saying instead ‘Silly Hairy Impala Toes’ and ‘Big Impalas Take Charge Here’ – that she could use on her brothers if they continued to bully her.
I caught the attention of one of the waiters walking by and ordered us two Coke floats. If Dad was going to exclude me from my own birthday lunch, I was going to make the most of it. When the man returned with large frosted glasses on a tray containing the Coke and vanilla ice-cream combo, I noticed Dad looking over at us, but he didn’t say anything.
Spending time with Elise, I was able to imagine what it would have been like if I’d had a sister of my own. She’d told me she didn’t get on with her brothers all the time, but I was sure that deep down there would’ve been a strong bond. She had people she could turn to when neither of her parents was a viable option, someone closer to her level.
‘That wasn’t so bad now, was it?’ Dad said on the drive home.
I had to admit that, no, it wasn’t that bad. It was probably one of the more enjoyable weekends that I had spent at his house.
‘And Elise is a nice girl, isn’t she?’ he said, pushing me to agree. ‘Maybe we could all do that again sometime. That would be nice, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
My ears pricked at the sound of a car pulling up outside the house, and I knew it was Mum even before she buzzed the intercom.
I noticed her scan my outfit when she got out the car; I was wearing the same dress as the day before, now crumpled and sporting grass stains.
‘Alright, Hannah, we’ve got to pick up some groceries before the shops close. Quick sticks.’
Dad came up behind Mum, placing his long fingers on her shoulders, which were tensed upwards further than usual, and pushing them down.
‘You’ve always had such bad posture. Always, always slouching. You’re going to get a bad back. And it makes you look self-conscious.’
Mum dropped her shoulders and arched her back and, in doing so, gently shook off Dad’s hands.
‘Things are stressful at the moment. My parents were kicked off their farm.’
‘Hannah told me. I’m sorry to hear that. What are they going to do now?’ Dad asked.
‘I don’t know. It’s all up in the air. They’re staying with us for now.’
‘How are they financially?’
‘It’s not just about the money, Steve. That was their life.’ Mum looked back towards the car, as though it were a person we were keeping waiting. ‘Anyway, we really do have to go—’
‘Hey, I was just asking out of concern for—’
‘Thank you for taking Hannah out for lunch yesterday.’
‘Bye, Dad.’
‘Bye, Hannah.’ Dad turned on his heel and walked inside, the front door slamming shut before the electric gate had fully rolled back open.
‘So, how was your special birthday lunch with Dad?’ Mum asked in the car.
I told her that we had gone to Victoria 22, and that I had a Coke float, but I spent most of the time with a girl called Elise.
‘Who? Who is Elise?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘What do you mean, you don’t know?’
‘I don’t know who she is. She’s younger than me, like Grade 2.’
‘But she invited you to play? Was she a girl from school?’
‘She was at the restaurant. Dad knows her mum, I think. She’s pretty.’
‘I see. Okay. Well, did you have fun at least?’
I said I did.
‘That’s good.’
Twenty minutes later, when Mum and I were at the Avondale supermarket complex, I noticed that as she carried the bags, overflowing with supplies for the week, her spine was curved and her shoulders slumped forwards.
‘You’re slouching again, Mum. You don’t want a bad back. You’ll be like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. No, no. The Hunchback of Harare,’ I said, giggling to myself.
‘That’s enough, Hannah.’ Mum grabbed the plastic bags I was carrying, one of her nails accidentally scratching my hand as she did so.
‘Ow!’ I squealed. It didn’t actually hurt, but it did surprise me a little. I was waiting for Mum to say sorry and kiss it better like she usually did, but she slammed the boot of Chitty shut and went over to the driver’s side without looking my way.
On the drive home, hot tears fell down my cheeks, but I managed to stop any audible sobs by concentrating on biting the tip of my tongue. This was a technique Diana taught me that I had successfully used once before when I got a strong telling off by Mrs Muduma in front of the whole class. Mum would only have noticed I was crying if she’d turned her head to look at my face, which she didn’t.
More than ever, I wanted a sister.
Later that day I entered the living room to see Mum sitting next to the landline, twirling the beige rings of the cord between her fingers as she spoke.
‘… Well, my dad’s a great handyman. He’d be happy to do that sort of thing. No, it’s not demean— no. Look, any little bit helps, hey? Yes. Well, I’ll let him know. Thanks again, John. He will be thrilled – really. Okay. Bye now.’
When she finally put the receiver down, I asked her the question that had been on my mind all evening.
‘Mum … do you ever wish you had a different child?’
‘A different child? Instead of you? Gosh, no, sweetie-pie. You’re amazing. You’re my everything.’
‘Not instead of me. Just a different child, before me. Or after me.’
‘Oh. Well, that would not be a different child, that’s another child,’ Mum explained.
‘But it’s a different child, if it’s not me, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, I suppose so … but when you say words in certain ways like that, it comes out with certain meanings. Like I told you about “maid” and “housekeeper”.’
I nodded along, but I didn’t care for Mum teaching me about words today.
‘I’ve always wanted a big brother,’ I said, moving to sit next to her, on the arm of the chair.
‘Oh? Why’s that?’
‘Just because. I want to have someone who could play in the pool with me, or who is really good at fishing. Diana always has her brothers to play with.’
‘Those boys are a bit of a handful,’ Mum said.
‘Or maybe a little sister, one who I could teach to do things.’
The room was quiet for a bit, with only the distant sounds of Gogo tapping a wooden spoon against a pot and the crickets coming to life in the garden.
‘There was a baby, after you,’ Mum said suddenly.
I didn’t know what she meant by this so I asked her.
‘I fell pregnant another time, shortly after you were born.’
‘You did?’
‘Mmm.’
Mum didn’t say anything else. It reminded me of when Shamiso would approach me during break-time, whispering in my ear that she had an interesting piece of gossip, but wouldn’t tell me what it was until I had asked her specifically one hundred times. ‘What is it, Shamiso?’ I’d ask, and she’d purse her lips in an I-can’t-tell-you-but-it’s-really-interesting sort of way.
‘So what happened?’ I asked.
A few seconds passed and Mum didn’t say anything so I followed up with, ‘You’ve never told me about this before.’
‘I know. I fell pregnant again, soon after I had you. I had only just stopped breastfeeding and – well, I became sick. Very sick. And the baby … the baby didn’t end up getting born.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘The baby died in my tummy, Hannah.’ Mum looked at me to make sure I understood. I didn’t even know that was a thing that could ha
ppen to pregnant women. The thought that my mother’s heart had a piece that ached for a child who didn’t exist made me sadder than words.
‘I’m sorry you didn’t have a different baby,’ I said, putting my arms around her. ‘Another baby, I mean.’
After a while, Mum pulled back from the embrace and held my cheeks in her hands. ‘You are so precious to me,’ she said.
‘I don’t want a brother or sister anyway, because then I would have to share my things, and Diana says her sister always takes her things without asking, and Elise’s brothers bully her. I’m happy being an only child.’
Mum laughed then sniffed and used her thumbs to wipe away the moisture under her eyes.
‘You always know the right things to say. Okay, come on now, let’s go,’ she said, as she stood up from the chair and pulled me up with her. ‘Your old mum is just being silly.’
11
The next time i saw dad, two weeks later, I asked him if he knew that Mum had had another baby. I must’ve sensed this was the sort of question that would make him angry, but I wanted to know more about it.
‘What baby? She didn’t have another baby.’ Three deep lines appeared in the gulf between his eyebrows.
‘She said she got pregnant after me but then …’
‘Ah. Okay. And I assume she blamed it on me, right? That I put too much stress on her, that I was the reason she had a miscarriage?’
I shook my head; Mum hadn’t said any of those things. In fact, Dad didn’t even come up once, which was strange because it was half his baby too.
‘The fact of the matter is, Hannah, when women reach a certain age they are no longer able to do the same things as younger women. Now your mummy was into her thirties when she had you, which is quite late to have a baby. Their bodies are older, can’t handle it as much as a young woman can. That’s why you had the hip dysplasia, right? And, look, I don’t blame her – she put off having a baby so she could climb the corporate ladder.’ This phrase elicited a derisive snort from him. ‘But you know your mother, she’s stubborn and sometimes can’t see what’s in her best interest.’ Dad’s brow de-creased after this spiel, as though his words were a personal muscle relaxant.
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